What’s the point of your story?
How is it helping others?
These questions make me hark back to teaching HS literature. I used to start the semester by asking the students: Why read?
Aside from enjoyment or entertainment, can we identify a higher purpose?
A Few Stats:
Reading helps us live vicariously through characters & experience things we may not have the opportunity to do in our own lives.
Readers tend to be more understanding of cultures other than their own.
Critical thinking increases as we read.
Stories are healing.
I recently posted a note about a recent study showing that reading for pleasure has dropped 40% in the last 20 years. The note didn’t get much traction, but it made me think about my own published book.
What about this memoir, My Father’s Daughter?
I’ve described it as, A story that shines light in darkness.
Or, A story that takes you down a dark, twisting path and brings you to light at the other end.
Or, Written for those who have felt the ground give out below them and need inspiration to climb back up to solid ground.
💡Memoirs inspire readers with a specific theme or thread that carries the story forward.
My thread connects a father/daughter relationship to how we become the people we are.
It touches on that universal question, Who Am I? And Why?
The story addresses children of alcoholics, family secrets, lies, infidelity, forgiveness, redemption . . .
You know, the “stuff of life.”
So, why might you read it?
Maybe you did not experience any of the childhood trauma mentioned in this book.
Maybe you never discovered family secrets that shook your foundation. Maybe you do not have any secrets of your own hidden in that backpack strapped on & weighing you down.
Maybe you do not feel you need to forgive your past?
After all, “they” say, your book isn’t for everyone.
~But listen to this: one of my readers, an 88 year-old woman with four adult children and several grandchildren revealed a secret to her family that she had been carrying her whole life. She decided, after reading my book, that the time had come to unstrap this burden because holding these secrets makes you sick. And guess what? The secret was NOT the same secret revealed in my book. Not even close.
Yet she thanked me for the inspiration to let this go after all these years.
Reading is healing.
~My Book Club featured My Father’s Daughter last month.
As our discussion day approached, I planned for an hour to answer questions & highlight some take-aways, yet we were still talking 2 & ½ hours later. So many had stories to tell that came gushing out due to the revelation in this book.
I’m finding similar stories have been crouching in so many closets for years. And although they seemed threatening, readers are now gathering the strength to toss them out.
Reading is energizing
~I’ve spoken to many who feel betrayed by their parents. Unable to get past the secrets & lies. Letting resentment fester like blood poisoning.
Remember the warning when you were a child? Watch for a red line traveling from the sore? That actually happened to me. My dad rushed me to the ER once he saw I had trouble walking. The doctor said some sobering words: “You could lose your leg over something like this.”
You’ve got to stop that red line in its tracks.
Readers have appreciated that I tried to tell my story, full of flawed people, with grace and dignity. I did not want to dishonor my parents and taint their reputation. Or their legacy. I let the only One who could, breathe life into me so that I could forgive. I had to.
Reading is life-giving
Back to that note about reading for the love of it dropping off in recent years…
Let’s enter into the fall season with a cozy book & change that stat.
You may have noticed I like pictures of my pretty coffee cups, but this fall, I may start posting pictures of a good book that takes me traveling to new experiences.
Join me?
If you want to start with mine, it’s available on Amazon and BarnesandNoble.com.
Locals can find it at a few bookstores, like The Elephant Ear, Beloved Books or Road Less Traveled.
It is a redemptive story, honoring the fact that while betrayal happens, restoration also happens.
Let me hear what you’re reading. 📚
{Liking & Sharing helps us make more connections. ❤️}
Thanks Shell, I am reading your memoir now. The story is compelling and the style intriguing. I recommend it for discerning readers.